It’s Playtime! … and a wonderful wooden toy gift for one of you!

To celebrate reaching 5000 wonderful followers on Facebook and the end of the successful 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge, I have a WONDERFUL wooden cake set from John Crane toys to give away to one reader in time for Christmas! Wow!

The High Tea Shape Sorter from the fabulous Wooden Toy Shop. co.uk is such a beautiful toy, made from solid wood and hand painted with gorgeous realistic details! It would make the perfect toy for any child this Christmas and would be a great addition to a toy kitchen or as part of a role-play bakery, cake shop, cafe or home corner, or indeed just as it is!

What I love about this is that not only is it fabulous to look at (and good enough to eat!) but it’s also educational! Each cake is carved into a slightly different shape and fits into its own unique hole in the stand, so that your child has to fit them back in like a puzzle. They also have numerals on the base of each with a matching space for each. So these toys promote number and shape recognition, cognitive skills, sorting and matching and problem solving- all at once! Not to mention imaginative and creative play skills, language development and social and interactive skills when played as part of a collaborative game with an adult or another child.

This is exactly the sort of toy I used to look for to have in my classroom when teaching Reception. High quality, long-lasting, educational, traditional and creative. A perfect combination!

My girls are going to be absolutely delighted to open this on Christmas morning! I am going to set it up as part of a tea shop, complete with pretty tablecloths, cups and saucers, a pot of “tea” and napkins (all from their play kitchen) ready to play with! My oldest daughter Cakie is very appropriately nick-named as cakes are her absolute favourite thing to talk, read, sing and play about at the moment! I envisage many, many hours of happy pretend play with these and am SO pleased that there are so many in the set so that they can have plenty to play with each!

If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you check out the rest of the Wooden Toy Shop‘s fabulous range of toys online. All natural, wooden, creative and beautiful, there’s sure to be something there for the little ones in your life. You still have until Tuesday morning to order in time for Christmas!

It’s also time to link up you best playful, creative, arty ideas for children below! Can’t wait to see what busy people you have all been this week! The ideas recently have been stunning as usual. I hope to post my favourites to my Facebook wall and to Pin a few too. Thank you!

I have been following you since I joined with face book and enjoy and put into practice some of your ideas. My Family Day Care Children would love to play with this and so would my 3 granddaughters. We just got a brand new kitchen for them so this would be great with that. Thank you and merry Christmas

Congratulations, Anna! Your blog is wonderful, and you deserve all the accolades and attention you’re getting. The cupcake set would be a dream to open on Christmas, and my kids would be thrilled to play with it. xo

Way to go on reaching 5000 fans!! Wow! The cupcake shape sorter set is such a cute idea! Love it, and so would my 1 year old daughter. Though, I’m not entirely sure I can enter. I am physically in the US currently, but will be going to Belfast for Christmas (We actually leave on the 19th of Dec.)… So, hopefully you will count this, but I understand if you can’t.

Love this set Anna! – as would my 3-year old girl! My eighteen month little man is coming along as a budding chef too….been loving all your ideas on the blog. We’re glad we found you! Play days are happy days Paulinex pauline.gribben@gmail.com

This is absolutely gorgeous my little girl is turning one a week today and would love this! Can’t wait to get my internet set back up in our house so I can load the pictures on your sight properly! Have a lovely Christmas! Xx

This is so beautiful! Would really love to win this for my 2 yr old girl she would love it so much Love following activities with The Imagination Tree I follow on facebook, will find you on twitter too @bertiechic